


Baby Powder

by Smutcutter



Category: Nirvana (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:21:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25545046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smutcutter/pseuds/Smutcutter
Summary: November 1996; Dave can't sleep while he is babysitting.M/M implied but not explicit. Short piece that has been rattling around in my brain for a while.** THIS IS A WORK OF TOTAL FICTION AND COMPLETELY FAKE **
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Baby Powder

Baby Powder

November 1996

It was cold outside. Cold for November in Southern California. Insomnia hit me hard again. Or, was it that I didn’t want to dream anymore. 

He is there, in those dreams. Smiling, petting my hair, he always loved my hair long. Probably why I keep it short all the time now. I can still feel the tug when he wound it around his slender fingers. Fingers calloused from years of guitar playing and lighting cigarettes and joints. He always joked about how shiny it was when it was greasy. When it was freshly washed, he blew at the ends like making a wish on a dandelion.

After any interview, for a magazine or a talk show, he looked haunted. Like he just handed over a chunk of his soul. He would shake uncontrollably and curl into my arms, huddled under some polyester nightmare of flowers in some nondescript hotel room in the middle of nowhere. The screams from a sold out show still making our ears ring. His silent tears would leave blooming flower patterns on my t-shirt. He’d smell of booze sweat and baby powder - yea, baby powder. This was before his daughter was born. 

His wife killed him as sure as he did himself. She wanted to be famous and latched on to him after a shitty one nighter. She dogged him long enough that one night he was too drunk to refuse and she was there waiting to pounce. I remember the frantic phone call from him. She had hidden his pants so he had no money or ID. By the time I got there, she had moved them to another hotel with the lure of more booze and drugs.

But his daughter - that was his true heart. When the one night stand from hell became the wife, he called me or was with me more often than he was with her. He ached for an escape he didn’t have the balls to execute. He eventually found it. 

He was always full of questions as to why he did things. Why this lyric (people will think I burn down houses), why wear a pink boa for an interview (people will think I’m insane), why drink so much (people will have me committed! Don’t let them take me away, Dave). He lived in anxiety 24 hours a day except when he looked at that little girl. Then the world made sense to him.

He rarely thought things through. He had a shot glass sized memory and only room for music. You add anything else, bound to be some spillage. I just know I would hear the wife yelling incoherently in the background when he called. Then, he would show up, babe in his arms, face tear-stained, eyes hollow, and lost. The wife was all about the plastic surgery and her agent and her look. She had changed overnight from stage five groupie to stage five wannabe be actress. It was all about her career. It was all about his money.

I would make grilled cheese sandwiches and we would play house. He liked that. The baby always giggled, we always laughed. When the babe was in her crib, we would make love, and I have to call it that. It’s the kind of thing you read about in cheesy melodramas - the world melting away - how perfect our bodies fit together - two halves of one soul. Silly sentiment and all true.

I hear his laugh now, carried on the Santa Ana winds over the Hollywood Hills. Baby powder. I can still smell it. The third cigarette is burning my throat and I’m shivering.

“Man, don’t.” He says and I don't have to look over my shoulder, I know he’s there. Fingers stroking my neck where my hair should be.

“Can’t help it.” My voice breaks.

“Can’t live like this. It’s been years. Do you ever sleep anymore?” He steps to the rail of the balcony, his hand gentle on my back, tickling my spine. “Will you ever grow your hair again?” His voice has that sadness that tears me up inside, deep gashes that will never heal.

“No, that was for you. And you only.” I don't have to turn to look at him. I know what he looks like, unshaven, bony, dirty bleached hair, huge eyes from a Margaret Keane painting that see right through me.

“But, I’m gone.” His forehead presses to my temple, baby powder and junkie body sweat envelopes me. 

“Ever gonna tell me why?” My voice breaks again, close to losing it.

“You have those answers, Dave.” He breathes the words - my name.

“Say it again”

“Dave... I love you.” He slips his arms around me and I finally turn to him, clinging, trying to make him stay this time. I am crying that deep soul cry that never emerges in the daylight. The kind that wracks your body, mouth wide with no sound coming out, eyes shut tight to the world. I fall to my knees with him dying inside me. The pain is unbearable and I can’t last another second.

“Uncle Dave?” She is in the doorway, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She finds me stubbing out my cigarette, hugging my knees.

“Hey kiddo - can’t sleep?” I say; tears gone, looking like nothing is wrong. She walks to me and I pull her into my lap. She is tiny for a six-year-old.

“It's okay Uncle Dave, I miss him.” I look into those old eyes. “I see him too, ya know. He smells like baby powder.” She smiles gently and then I do cry, my head resting on her tiny shoulder.

“You should grow your hair again.” She whispers and pets me.

She smells like baby powder.

END


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